The Press: Liberation in Paris

Liberation in Paris Agence France-Presse, with 2,200 clients in 44 countries, boasts that it is one of the world's biggest news agencies. But it does no boasting about another distinction : it is the only major wire service in the free world that has been largely government-supported. Founded after the liberation to succeed prewar Havas, which the Nazis liquidated in 1941, A.F.P. was forced to go to the government for money —and accept government slanting of news —because struggling Paris dailies could not meet the agency's full operating costs.

By 1954, political pressure on...